Celtics want extra day off

Do you have anything special planned for Sunday? The Celtics hope they don’t.

They’d like to avoid a Game 7 showdown Sunday night against the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals by taking care of business at 8:30 tonight at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

Boston leads the best-of-seven series, 3-2, and can finish off Detroit tonight. There’s always the safety net of returning to the Garden to play Game 7. The Celtics are 10-1 at home in the playoffs, including Game 7 victories over Atlanta and Cleveland, but boiling your season down to one game is never a good idea.

The Green have never lost a best-of-seven series in which they’ve led, 3-2, but the past means little to this team. These Celtics are trying to create their own history. With one more victory, the new Big Three will lift the Celtics to their first NBA Finals since the original Big Three did it in 1987.

The NBA Finals start Thursday.

Capturing the franchise’s 17th NBA championship, and its first since 1986, would elevate the Big Three to immortal status, but that’s getting ahead of things.

The Celtics are only 1-7 on the road this postseason, but one of those victories came Saturday in Game 3 of this series.

Tonight, the Boston starters have to be concerned about fatigue after playing so much in a 106-102 victory in Game 5 at the Garden. The Pistons, on the hand, have to be worried about the strained right elbow of Rip Hamilton, their leading scorer in this series (22.2) and throughout the playoffs (21.7).

Rajon Rondo played 46 of the 48 minutes in Game 5 because backup Sam Cassell once again played like a nervous rookie instead of a savvy veteran. Cassell played only the first 2:08 of the second quarter, and Lindsey Hunter somehow stole the ball from him near the Pistons basket and fed Jason Maxiell for a dunk.

“I told Rondo at halftime,” coach Doc Rivers said, “that he was not coming out, but don’t play and worry about fouls, just play his game.”

Before Game 5, Rivers already had decided to use P.J. Brown and James Posey as his only subs up front. Each of them ended up playing less than 15 minutes. Paul Pierce played 44:27 and fought double teams the entire time. Kevin Garnett played 41:25 and produced 33 points. Kendrick Perkins avoided foul trouble and contributed career playoff highs of 18 points and 16 rebounds in 39 minutes. Helping the Big Three reach their first NBA Finals motivated the 6-foot-10 center.

“I knew if I was up in age, up in my 30s,” the 23-year-old Perkins said after Game 5, his infant son on his lap, “and a young fellow was right there, I’d want him to go all out for me, too. My thing is, I’m going to leave it out there on the court — for myself, for my teammates, and for everybody.”

Ray Allen will enter tonight with renewed confidence after draining 5 of 6 3-pointers and scoring 29 points in 39 minutes on Wednesday. The veteran guard had made just 3 of 14 3-pointers in the first four games of the series and was shooting only 30 percent from threeland throughout the playoffs.

“This has been a tough stretch for Ray,” Rivers said, “and I give him a ton of credit. No. 1, I thought this was his best defensive night, and to me that’s more important. No. 2, he never changed his routine, he never did anything different. He kept working on his game, he kept believing every day, and that’s probably why he’s been so great through his career — because he believes. If that had been me, I’d have been a basket case as a player. Most players would have been. But that’s the difference between the good ones and the great ones.”

Hamilton strained his right elbow battling for a rebound with 8.2 seconds left in Game 5 and was in obvious pain after the game as he walked from the locker room to the trainer’s room to have his elbow X-rayed. X-rays were negative, but Hamilton left the Garden in a sling.

If the game were last night, Hamilton wouldn’t have played, Saunders said. He hopes that changes tonight.

If Hamilton can’t play tonight, or even if he plays in pain, the Pistons obviously won’t be firing on all cylinders. Rookie Rodney Stuckey, who has averaged 11 points coming off the bench in this series, probably would play more if Hamilton isn’t 100 percent, but no other Piston will force the Celtics to chase him all night the way Hamilton does.

After scoring a team-high 26 points in Game 5, Pistons point guard Chauncey Billups reported his right hamstring felt the best it has since he strained it in the conference semifinals against Orlando.

Human time bomb Rasheed Wallace will need to keep his temper tonight. After picking up his sixth technical foul in Game 5, the Pistons’ big man is one slip of the tongue away from his seventh T and a one-game suspension.

In the locker room after Wednesday’s game, Wallace went on an obscenity-laced tirade, basically accusing the referees of taking the game away from the Pistons and mentioning officials Mike Callahan and Ken Mauer by their first names. He was fined $25,000 by the NBA yesterday for the comments.

You’ve got to believe the officials working tonight’s game read the comments and will be listening closely to what Wallace has to say tonight.